


As The Arrow Flies

by Maymo



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, i think, like a line or two of angst, not meant as shippy but you can read how you want, very very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maymo/pseuds/Maymo
Summary: Scout asks Sniper to teach him how to shoot a bow.
Relationships: Scout & Sniper (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	As The Arrow Flies

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me a while ago and I finally wrote it. It's nothing amazing, pretty much nothing happens. I just want Sniper and Scout to be friends.

“Yo, Snipes, can you teach me how to shoot a bow?” says Scout from somewhere across the room, voice raised so as to be heard among the chattering of everyone else.

For once Sniper had actually come to ‘hang’ out at the base. By hang out he means sit on the couch, quietly reading a book while everyone else participates in some sort of group activity. The elected group activity this week being poker. It had been charades last week. Pyro had picked that one.

Sniper looks up from his book, one eyebrow raised.

Scout is turns towards him from where he is sitting at the table, one arm resting on the back of the chair, a bunch of cards loosely held in the other. The game seems to be on pause in the background, the chatter having died down.

It makes Sniper squirm uncomfortably. He has never liked being in the center of attention, it always made his heart beat erratically and his face flush. This is precisely why he spent most of his time in his camper.

He tries not to let how uncomfortable he feels show. Instead he just looks back down at the book. “I suppose I could,” he says nonchalantly, eyes skimming across the page, trying to find where he left off.

Scout whoops and turns back to the table, the previous chatter picks up again and it’s almost like nothing happened at all, except Sniper’s hands are still trembling just a bit. It makes the book quiver and the words shake and ten minutes pass before he is calm enough to finish the page.

He silently wonders what is wrong with him as a loud cheer goes up at the table.

Sniper manages to forget about his agreement in the coming days, what with the battles and the general chaos that comes from living with eight other men in a more or less confined space. He spends most of his time in his camper and decidedly not at the base, which means that the only times he even sees Scout are during breakfast and dinner, through the scope of his rifle and whenever the both of them end up in respawn at the same time.

Sniper tends to be absent-minded during the best of times and he hasn’t been sleeping well for the past two weeks so it was no wonder that the incident with Scout managed to delete itself from his brain.

So when a knock comes from his camper’s door at 8 am in the goddamn morning, on a Saturday no less, he is more than surprised.

At first he thinks it’s a mistake and continues lying in the bed and staring at the ceiling if his van, but after less than a minute there is another knock, followed by a “Snipes, you in there?”

That makes Sniper’s eyes widen as he remembers that he had agreed to teach Scout. He yells a “be right there” as he stumbles out of bed, accidentally dragging the blanket to the floor. He quickly finds a shirt and some pants, pulling them on as he makes his way to the door. In his hurry he bangs his hip against the table and when he finally gets to the door he’s sure he looks like a complete mess.

Scout on the other hand looks as cheerful as ever, smiling brightly as Sniper finally opens the door. He either doesn’t notice how messy Sniper looks or he simply doesn’t care, as he immediately starts babbling excitedly about learning to shoot.

Sniper’s sleep muddled brain can barely keep up with all the words that are flying out of Scout’s mouth a mile a minute, and he runs a hand across his face, before holding up a hand.

This finally makes Scout pause and his expression falls. “I—I’m sorry, you probably don’t actually want to teach me, right? You probably only agreed because you didn’t want to make me feel bad. And now I woke you up, an’ you’re probably pissed—“

“Scout,” Sniper says, and it comes out a bit more sternly than he intends. Scout’s mouth snaps shut, and for a fraction of a second something like fear shows on his face. But then it’s gone and Sniper is left to wonder if it was even there in the first place. He shakes his head, “I said I’d teach you, so that’s what I’ll do. I just didn’t expect you to come so early.”

That seems to calm Scout down and the smile slowly creeps back on his face, though it’s still a bit timid. “So should I come back later or…?”

“I’m already up, might as well do it now.”

Scout pumps a fist in the air, and excited whoop slipping between his lips. It makes Sniper chuckle to himself, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I’ll go grab the bow and all that, you can set up the target. There’s a few by the back of the camper, we’ll only need one though. There should also be an old carpet, grab that too.”

Sniper bustles back into the camper as Scout runs off to get everything set up. He turns on the coffee maker on his way to get all the equipment. He can barely function without coffee, especially this early in the morning, and he’s supposed to teach Scout how to handle a pretty lethal weapon, so it would be in everyone’s best interest that he’s wide awake. While he waits for the coffee to brew he rests his hip against the table and watches Scout struggle to set up the target through the back window of his camper.

When the coffee is finally done he pours himself a cup, briefly considers making one for Scout before remembering that Scout despises coffee unless half the cup is filled with sugar and Sniper really doesn’t feel like wasting that much sugar, so he dismisses that idea quickly. With a cup of coffee in one hand, a quiver of arrows slung across his shoulder and the bow in his other hand he exits the van and goes to help Scout set up.

The morning air is still somewhat cool though the sun has been up for a few hours. The air will definitely start heating up quickly very soon, but for the time being Sniper appreciates the cool air entering his lungs. There’s a slight wind blowing, thankfully not strong enough to disrupt their archery lesson, but noticeable enough to help relieve the heat that is bound to come.

Scout has managed to get the target set up and he’s sitting on the ground next to it, arms resting on his knees, breathing heavily. The carpet is lying on the ground next to him, still rolled up. He looks up once he hears Sniper approach.

“That thing is way heavier than it looks. It must weight almost as much as my aunt Debby and she is not light, let me tell you,” he laughs a little at that, before he continues, “anyways, what’s the carpet for?”

“Backstop,” Sniper says as he sets down the bow and arrows, then takes a gulp of coffee. At Scout’s confused look Sniper elaborates, “It’s to stop the arrows if you miss the target. Now come one, we need some stands to drape the carpet over.”

Scout groans a little before getting up and trailing after Sniper. They drag the stands behind the target and then throw the carpet over them. It’s not the best backstop, but it’ll have to do. Sniper hands Scout the bow and the quiver of arrows, then picks up the cup of coffee from where he set it down on the ground.

“We’ll start pretty close up and then move further away from the target when you start getting the hang of the basics,” Sniper says and leads Scout about twenty five feet away from the target. “Okay, try to take a shot.”

Scout looks at the target, then looks at Sniper. “You’re not gonna teach me?”

“I’ll teach you. But first I want you to try and take a shot.”

Scout fidgets a bit with the bow, then he takes an arrow from the quiver and nocks it. He takes aim, draws the bow, holds it for a bit and then finally fires. The arrow hits the side of the target, which is better than Sniper expected. Scout’s shoulders sag though and he sighs before looking at Sniper.

“Not bad,” says Sniper and takes another sip of his coffee.

“What do you mean not bad? I barely even hit it,” Scout scoffs, motioning towards the target.

“But you hit it. Most people would have missed. Now,” Sniper moves next to Scout, “what you’ll want to do is widen your stance. Your feet should be shoulder width apart, toes pointing slightly outward. Yes, like that, now turn your hips more towards the target.”

Sniper takes the position himself and Scout mimics it.

“Good, now you want to remember this position and stay in it every time you shoot. A consistent stance is very important for being able to make consistent shots. Try and shoot now.”

Scout takes another shot. This time the arrow hits the target more towards the middle and a small grin shows up on Scout’s face. They continue like that for the next half an hour—Scout shooting a few arrows and Sniper correcting Scout’s mistakes and giving him tips on what to improve. Every now and then Scout misses the target completely, as would be expected, and every time his brows furrow and his shoulders sag.

Sniper tries to compliment him as much as possible on the good shots—Scout seems to respond really well to the positive feedback, always beaming when Sniper compliments his stance or his shooting. After about an hour of coaching him Sniper feels comfortable enough with Scout’s skill level to leave him alone for a bit and go make breakfast for himself.

He decides to go to the base instead of eating in his camper, mainly because there’s barely any food left in his fridge anyhow. Thankfully the kitchen is empty, everyone probably enjoying the chance to sleep in. He would be too if it wasn’t for Scout, but he finds that he actually doesn’t mind being up early for once. Nor does he mind spending his time teaching Scout.

If he’s being completely honest, Sniper hadn’t expected Scout to be such a good student. He was always so hyperactive and talkative, never standing still for too long and archery is a very precise art. It takes patience and focus and with the way Scout is, Sniper had expected complaining within the first ten minutes. It seemed like he had gotten that completely wrong. But to be completely fair, he hadn’t spent much time getting to know Scout, or anyone on the team for that matter. Sniper liked to keep to himself. He wasn’t a people person and so he only really talked to them when it was necessary.

He had definitely gotten to know Scout better in the past hour more than he had in the few years they had been working together.

While Scout spent a lot of time concentrating on learning how to properly shoot a bow, he also talked. Not as much as usually, but every now and then he mentioned something about his family or his childhood. Sniper mostly listened, because that was what he did best. Surprisingly he found himself mentioning a thing or two about his own family. Nothing too much, his family was still a bit of a painful subject to him—the way his parents looked at him and his job.

In the end he realizes that he enjoys listening to Scout talk. Probably because Scout didn’t expect Sniper to always answer, he was perfectly fine with doing all the talking himself.

Sniper shakes himself out of his thoughts once he realizes that he’s been standing in the middle of the kitchen for about five minutes doing absolutely nothing. He moved towards the fridge, trying to figure out what exactly he could make for breakfast. The fridge decided for him. All they had in there were a few loafs of bread, some cheese, half a tomato, three eggs and an almost empty bottle of milk.

Knowing that everyone else would be coming down to eat soon as well, and that it would be best if there was _something_ in the fridge to make food out of Sniper settles on making two sandwiches. He usually didn’t eat much for breakfast anyway and if he was hungry later, he could munch on the bag of pistachios he had in his camper.

He ends up making an extra sandwich for Scout too. He’s pretty sure that Scout forgot to eat breakfast in all his hyperactive excitement and it seems like a nice thing to do. Who would have thought that Sniper would be doing nice things for anyone really.

Not that Sniper didn’t like doing nice things. He just generally didn’t do things for someone who he barely knew, but it felt right somehow.

So with a plate with three sandwiches in tow he makes his way back outside. He spots Scout still standing in the same spot as when they started, bow aimed at the target, a few arrows already sticking out of it.

The heat has finally settled in, though it was bound to get even hotter as the sun went higher up. Thankfully there’s a few clouds drifting through the sky, blocking out the sun every now and then and bringing a few minutes of blissful coolness. As Sniper walks over to where Scout is standing he realizes that he should have grabbed a bottle of water for Scout. Archery might look easy, but you still get tired real fast, especially in the heat.

He’ll just grab a cup of water for him from his van.

“How’s it goin’?”

Scout jumps, lets go of the draw and the shot goes wide, the arrow hitting the backstop. “Shit man, you scared me! What’re you doing sneakin’ up on people?” he exclaims.

Sniper scratches the back of his neck, “Sorry mate, I wasn’t trying to be sneaky.”

“Naw, it’s fine,” Scout goes to collect the arrows, “you just surprised me, is all. And uh, it’s going fine, I guess. I hit the target more often than not,” he flashes a grin at Sniper, “that’s good right?”

“You’re certainly doing better than I was when I first started. Course I was ten and had never shot anything in my life.”

“Good to know I’m better than a ten year old.”

Sniper chuckles a little at that, then remembers why he came over. “Oh, I brought you a sandwich. Figured you didn’t eat before so uh, yeah,” he offers the plate to Scout, “here.”

Scout sets down the bow and arrows before reaching for the food. “Thanks man. And uh, thanks for teaching me. You didn’t have to, an’ I know that I can be annoying to deal with so… thanks for putting up with me.”

The self-conscious tone in Scout’s voice takes Sniper by surprise. Scout has always been very confident, too confident sometimes, Sniper didn’t think that he couldn’t get self-conscious. Hell, up until just now he was sure Scout didn’t know what self-conscious even was.

Sniper has never been good at reading people. Not when he was a kid who couldn’t understand why everyone else had no trouble at all with making friends, and not now, as an adult who could barely manage to get through a simple interaction with his coworkers.

To him Scout had always seemed like an overconfident idiot who always tried too hard to prove himself. He had never really considered that there might be a deeper reason for why he acted the way he did. Which is silly, now that he thinks about it

He realizes that he’s been quiet for too long when he looks at Scout and sees the anxious look on his face. He rushes to assure him, “It’s no problem mate. ‘S not like I have anything better to do anyway.”

That seems to put Scout’s mind at ease, and he nods once before sitting down on the dusty ground and taking a bite from the sandwich.

“And you’re not all that bad,” Sniper adds after a few moments of silence.

Scout gives him an upwards glance, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Sniper shrugs, “for a hyperactive motormouth.”

Sniper chuckles and steps aside to avoid the swing Scout throws towards his legs. Scout sends a glare his way, but there’s a small grin spreading across his face, so there’s no real heat behind it.

They eat like that for a few minutes—Sniper standing and Scout sitting, both enjoying the slight breeze that sweeps across the rocky ground, a comfortable silence between them. When Scout is done, he picks up the bow and the arrows and goes right back to practicing, telling Sniper about the shenanigans he and his brothers used to get into.

Sniper ends up keeping Scout company for the next few hours while he practices and when they finally deem it too hot to be doing any archery he takes himself by surprise and invites Scout to come hang out in his camper. Scout is just as surprised by the invitation though he accepts almost immediately.

They end up talking for a few more hours, or Scout talks while Sniper cleans his rifles, offering his input when it seems appropriate. When Scout finally announces that he has to go (something about promising to help Pyro decorate… something) Sniper surprises himself for the third time that day and offers to make the archery lessons a weekly thing.

“If you’d be interested in that,” he says as Scout gets ready to leave.

Scout grins. “That’d be great!”

And then he’s running out the door, yelling a quick _see ya_ as he goes. Sniper watches in amusement as Scout stumbles and almost face plants in his rush to get back to the base.

When Sniper is going to bed that evening he finds that he’s looking forward to next week’s archery lesson.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on Tumblr: [maiiyoz](https://maiiyoz.tumblr.com/)


End file.
